January 26, 2018

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey

First Thoughts on the President’s DACA Immigration Proposal

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Friends,

The news this morning highlights President Trump’s latest gambit regarding immigration reform and the so-called “DACA kids,” most of whom now are into their 20s and 30s. What has caught the attention of many conservatives, including those who have supported the president fairly consistently (as I have), is the proposal to offer approximately 1.8 million illegals who fall into that category what is called a “pathway to citizenship.” Of course, that offer was made to sweeten the idea and make it more attractive to the open borders crowd, balancing the fundamental border enforcement measures that the president has also proposed—a secure Wall and appropriated funding, an end to chain migration, an end to the Visa lottery system, greatly reduced levels of legal immigration, and a sharp increase in funding and manpower for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, with many more agents on the ground.

Over the next few weeks debate will rage; editorials will be written; additional studies will be released. The Open Borders crowd will insist that the president has not gone far enough, that this proposal—to quote Leftist Senator Elizabeth Warren—is an “insult to the DACA kids” (and their families). Indeed, it is clear that nothing short of totally open borders and full and immediate citizenship (or the equivalent thereof) will satisfy those people who in reality advocate the replacement of America’s traditional population with new, “third world” immigrants, whom, let us add, they believe they will be able to manipulate and thus use to secure their eventual complete control over every aspect of American life. This revolutionary process is far along in California, with measurably devastating effects economically, socially, and culturally. And in Europe, most especially in Germany and France and Sweden, the result is the impending extinction of traditional European society and culture, the abolition of its history and the submerging of its historic ethnicity in what can only be termed the very worst aspects of “third world” barbarism, fanaticism and economic collapse.

This eventuality, let me suggest, is something that no Trump supporter, no “deplorable,” is ready to accept, nor can he accept. Indeed, even those shaped and biased Mainstream Media polls consistently reveal that most Americans are not receptive to such a possibility…and, this fact on the ground is the major reason that the leaders of the Open Borders crowd have hitherto proceeded cautiously, if progressively over the years. The idea that the United States could become the “dumping ground” for millions of illiterate, unskilled immigrants from Africa or Latin America, presented in all its rude and crude reality, is not a winning issue politically, at least not at the moment (despite the puffed-up outrage of the Left and brain-dead Republicans over the president’s supposed “s---hole” comment.)

Yet, this is precisely the underlying goal, the objective, of the Open Borders zealots, including tag-a-long GOP senators like culture traitors Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake (who also envisage such an influx as a boon to their Big Capitalist donors and a salve to their warped idea of anti-racist “conservatism”).

One-hundred and seventy years ago Henry Clay was called the “great compromiser,” the congressional leader who through various efforts at compromise attempted to head off conflicts that would eventually result in the War Between the States. Clay’s efforts, as well-intentioned and politically pragmatic as they might have been, failed, and failed largely because he did not understand that constitutional right and reason were largely on the side of leaders like “Old Republican” Senator Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina and Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, who argued, correctly, that the original intent of the Constitution and the application of the 9^th and 10^th amendments, which guaranteed states’ rights, were critical to the survival of the republican experiment as envisaged by the Framers. The violation of this original understanding and meaning, and the usurpation of the Lincoln administration, led to bloody war.

President Trump can rightly be called the “great deal maker.” He has the deserved reputation, garnered over the years and expressed in his volume The Art of the Deal, as one of the most skillful “deal-makers” in American history. In examining the White House proposal, certainly it is the opening salvo in future negotiations. While it includes some very much needed proposals for border security—and avoiding the culturally suicidal policies now operative in much Western Europe—the floated idea of a “pathway to citizenship” for the “dreamers” is a non-starter for immigration patriots. Even with the stipulation that attaining citizenship for them would necessarily be ten or twelve years distant after the initial “coming in from the cold,” such a proposal discriminates against those potential new citizens who have been patiently waiting in line, obeying all the laws and rules, for years.

Let me offer a personal story: The lady who has been cutting my hair for the past twelve years is from Panama. She and her husband are American citizens, proud of their heritage but even prouder of their US citizenship. As she sums it up to me: “Why do they get special consideration and favors, while my husband and I had to stand in line for years, spend our money and time and pass all the hurdles? Sure, many of them came as children, but they are still illegal. I played by the rules, why can’t they? They claim it would be a hardship, but when we came we experienced hardship also, but we were legal and followed the law.”

Additionally, the suggested restriction on chain migration to immediate family, while sounding reasonable at first, is limited and could well offer a template to the Left and GOP immigration wimps for an overall expansion of immigration for all illegals (and family members). Bringing in parents and children is one thing; but once here, what then about the claims of those new arrivals that they should be able to bring in additional, close family members? Can you imagine Republicans arguing against that “inhumanity”? Ending chain migration, if it is to mean anything, must be exactly that.

In North Carolina my own congressman, George Holding, offers a more rational view. In an interview with The [Raleigh] News & Observer, January 11, Representative Holding declared that “he would not vote for any immigration bill that includes a pathway to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children.” [http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/under-the-dome/article194163054.html ]

“If there is a pathway to citizenship put into the law, I would not be in favor of it. It doesn’t mean they can’t stay here. It doesn’t mean they can’t have some status here. We could find a way for that….

“I’d be willing to look for a way for them to have a status so they stay. But becoming a citizen? I don’t believe so. I think people need to understand that breaking the law has consequences. So an adult who brings a child in and all of a sudden they say, ‘Oh, it was a child. They didn’t know.’ You are a parent. You are an adult. Breaking the law has consequences and that will flow down to your children.”

Congressman Holding echoes the position of conservatives in the House of Representatives who, on January 10, introduced a measure that would allow DACA recipients to obtain renewable temporary work permits, but would not offer a path to citizenship [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/us/politics/house-republicans-hard-line-immigration-trump.html?_r=0].

And, certainly, I would add, that any such illegals granted legal work status should also be specifically needed, with a job position available that no American citizen will or can fill. In competition between a qualified American citizen and a non-citizen, the citizen should always be favored.

Understandably, the president’s proposal is a first shot; there are parts of it that traditional conservatives who are “America First” immigration patriots can support. There are other aspects that would be unacceptable. Of course, that is what negotiations and deal-making are all about. But it is up to us, to those grassroots Americans who supported the president in November 2016, to make sure that in the process our American birthright, what is left of our nation and our culture, is not deeded away. We do not wish to end up as Sweden or Germany, soon to be only memories as historical entities where their distinct cultures, religious traditions, and ethnicity have disappeared.

President Trump has been a successful negotiator in the past. He simply must be so now; the very future of our country is at stake.